Tales on the Time Clock

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

It’s the nagging feeling I get in the back of my mind when I
leave things unfinished that propelled me.I spent the last few weeks trying to come up with a summary of
everything that has happened between then and now.Haven’t had much luck in that regard, only
thing that really comes to mind is nothing which is not a bad thing to be
thinking about, it seems to me.All
things in their right place.

I hadn’t actually applied for the job; in fact I hadn’t
updated my resume online for nearly six months.They came looking for me, which was surprising in and of itself and I
figured I’d give them a shot.Took them
fucking forever to get back to me each time there was a break between HR
questioning and phone interviews.Nearly
a month later and I’m sitting in a conference room in “downtown” Racine with a three
hour panel interview ahead of me.I
quite wanted to smack the shit out of the idiot who kept asking questions only
to bury his head into his BlackBerry when I gave my answer.“I’m really going to report directly to this
guy,” I thought?

It wasn’t more than 3 days before some guy in PA was on the
phone telling me that they not only wanted to exceed my salary requirements by
15K, but that they wanted me to start immediately.“Who just up and offers that much money (10K
more than I was making in New York) without even trying to negotiate,” I said
to my dad, “for a company so concerned with cost cutting you’d think they would
be a bit sterner, wouldn’t you?”It was
that other nagging feeling in the back of my head (the one I had finally
stopped ignoring) that led me to look a bit deeper into the company making the
offer.

“If it sounds too good to be true, it sure as hell is.”

“Trust me, I’ve learned that lesson.”

The network of people I know in the greater Milwaukee area
far exceeds that of the past two cities I called “home,” so gathering a little
intel on working conditions there was not difficult.60+ hour weeks, most Saturdays, constant
shouting and belittling, managers who sacrifice their team members to benefit
themselves not to mention that 50 mile one way trip made it sound a lot like
another shit hole I used to work in.That money though, damn, I have had a really tough time recovering from
the purchases that bitch kept when I got the boot.I could really use that money.

I’m thinking about it one afternoon driving home, thinking
about the summary (or lack there of) I had put together of life in the past
nine months or so.An extreme amount of
effort was put into keeping this new life of mine stress-free at work, with
women and among friends.I had to admit
every bit of that effort was paying off; I had been having more fun since
September than I had in the entire time I was in New York.I was happy to go to work for once, ok with
turning down someone and totally free of anger for the first time in so
long.Did I really want to jeopardize
that for money?I took the risk for a
woman once (something seemingly much more valuable) and that turned out to not
be worth it at all.In fact, all it did
was cause pain and a permanently bitter spot on my heart.

I let them wonder on the first two days before the 4th
and finally called them back on the 5th to tell them that I couldn’t
take the job.“No, more money or
vacation time wouldn’t change my mind; I was happy where I was.”That was the god honest truth, it might not
be perfect here but I know what I’ve got and I enjoy it.I’m happy now, not perfectly content, but
happy.Happiness cannot be bought or
moved to, trust me I’ve tried.

I actually felt a nice ease about me after I made that
decision. Some might lay awake thinking about
the money that they left on the table but not me.I have spent more than enough time with the
ol, “what if,” bullshit.

That choice and the way it was handled are a microcosm of
the way I’ve been operating around big decisions these days.I have me and only me in mind when I
deliberate these days.I don’t think
about pleasing a girl or impressing her impossible family at my own expense
anymore.I don’t think about doing
anything to get out of a less than ideal situation anymore.I make the decisions that are going to
benefit me and I don’t give fuck all about anyone else.Maybe that was they way I was going about it
before but this time I know it flat out and I don’t have anyone to sell it to.Call it selfish if you wish, I call it
self-preservation.

Besides, “the first and only love is self love,” or so the
last fortune cookie I ate told me.

When I think about a lot of the nonsense on this blog I realize
that a good part of it is me struggling to deal with the way that things in my
life affected me.Always in a
reactionary state I was, never thinking forward.I’ve laid numerous precedents to the contrary
now, those days are gone.

I guess that brings me back to the summary I thought I
should put together.Nothing, which is
basically what had happened since late September last year.Nothing was all I could think of.No problems at work, no girl arguments, no
blacking out, no drunken driving incidents, no crazy drug deals gone wrong, no
fist fights, no complicated multiple relationships, no constant worrying about
appeasing the unappeasable…no more broken hearts.Kinda seems to me at this point, that the past
few years of my life have had some good times but they have been overshadowed
by some of the worst things I’ve ever experienced.

Perhaps I should try again.

I’ve gotten a new job where I’m respected, albeit not paid a
whole lot.I’ve gone on some awesome
road trips with my friends and gotten closer to them than any time in the past
10 years.I’ve had some great casual sex
where no one felt obligated when the clothes were back on.I’ve been promoted, twice.I’m moving into a kick ass house with a good
friend.I won my fantasy football league.I’ve been disc golfing more than I have since
I graduated high school.That’s just the
stuff I could come up with in a minute or two, you see, things have been going
great.For once I’m defining time passed
on good things and not just because nothing bad has happened.It’s because I want to.

There is just one thing that serves as the only cloud left
in the sky: Nicole.I would be a liar to
say I don’t still think about her most days.I can’t quite help it when music plays such a strong role in calling up
old memories.Did you think I was going
to stop listening to the same songs we used to love together?I didn’t think so; you deal with the emotions
a song brings up.It is what makes some
songs mean so much more than others.

It doesn’t hurt like it used to anymore, that big black open
wound in my chest that she left me with, but it does burn from time to
time.I’ve gotten pretty good at
disregarding the bad memories we had in favor of the good times as I’d like to
remember her fondly.Some things ($)
make it harder than others, but all in all she is one of the only good memories
I have of someone I used to love.I
don’t much care anymore if she doesn’t think about me, write me or use my name
in reciting old stories for her friends.I’m too concerned with myself and I’ve no shame in saying I still tell
stories about us, still think about our times and still wish I could at least
say hi.No matter, though, I’ve got
plenty of other things to think about and do.If that time comes, it comes.If
it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

There is probably a lot more to say, but not a whole lot I
feel like writing down.Maybe this is
finally the “riding off into the sunset,” ending I was looking for here, maybe
not.Maybe we’ve got the whole
connotation of what riding off into the sunset actually means.It is no guarantee of better days to come,
simply a guarantee that more days will come and I’ll be here to face them.

I’ll put this to bed now; there are a few of you out there
that I’ve truly enjoyed knowing over these past years and I hope the few of you
know that.I can say I wouldn’t be where
I am right now without you all and, for better or for worse; I wouldn’t change
a goddamn thing.Yeah, I miss talking to
a certain West Coast friend and I won’t lie and say I don’t miss the
relationship Nic and I had before it all went wrong.Yeah, there was a lot of pain that came from
this but there was much more growing.

And yeah, before you ask, it all still stings a bit…but I
guess that’s how I know it was real.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

I knew the minute I started typing the first few letters
that I was doing something I shouldn’t have been.I guess the haphazard searches on Facebook
before the New Year were not well thought out.If I had just signed out of the account she blocked me from I would
easily find the doorstep to the life of someone I used to know.

I felt fucking dirty.

What in the hell was I doing?

I had gone out of my way to bring my sorry ass up to New
York for New Years and managed to find someone from my old job who would host
me.It was all for the sole purpose of
delivering the note I wrote on the airplane, like I had done so many times
before.Fuck me did that ever blow up in
my face.Shortly after one in the
morning I was stupidly arguing with her father via text message.I don’t quite know what I was trying to prove
to myself, but it didn’t serve its purpose.I flew back from Philly later that week feeling like quite the
fool.I guess I wasn’t quite as
resilient as I thought.

I didn’t give it much thought for the few months after that,
why should I care about offending someone who cared so little for me?I started thinking about it when her birthday
came, for some reason we were all out and one of them made a foolish comment, “Here’s
to the anniversary of the beginning of Pat’s trip back here.”I left pretty shortly thereafter.She had been in the back of my mind ever
since.

It isn’t that I have some foolish thought in the back of my
mind that we will somehow end up together.I guess I have grown up a bit since I thought stupid things like
that.The thing that really bothered me
was how someone who I had held in such high esteem and cared so much about
could just do away with me on a moment’s notice.No matter, in the end the only conclusion that
allows me to live with myself is that I made an egregious set of mistakes that
I must never repeat again…whether through self-isolation or some other method.

So that leaves me here, like a fool, looking her up on
Facebook and wondering if I could find out anything more about her life these
days.I can’t fool anyone anymore, let
alone myself; I miss her and wonder how she is.I thought, for a fleeting moment, about writing her again.The moment passed quickly when I played the
tape through to conclusion.I knew how
she would respond, or rather how she would not respond.The thought started to burn me once
again.I went out onto the back porch to
smoke a cigarette, telling myself I should just go to bed and not bother
writing any of this melodramatic shit down, but it didn’t seem I was ready
quite yet.

I thought for a second how pathetic looking her up had been
and as I pondered the slim odds that she had done the same I realized I was
showing her the same disrespect I had exhibited from March 3rd when
I arrived to the time she kicked me out of that life.I guess I never could understand what she
wanted, could I?I worshiped her, but
was so blind to what she needed and was so in denial that what I was up to hurt
her so.It hurts because I lost the only
woman I’ve ever really loved and it hurts that the pain contributed to my
acting so childishly and pursuing her when she clearly wanted nothing more to do
with me.I guess that was my ego getting
in the way again, wasn’t it?

“I love her like no one on this earth,” I often rationalized
to myself, “someday she will come around and feel the same.”How very delusional and foolish that I would
assume the world revolved around me in such a manner.I suppose that was the problem all along wasn’t
it?It sucks that I lost my lover, it
sucks even more that I lost a friend of her caliber.It would not be smart to take up that search
again, I don’t dare take the risk of hurting myself in such a manner again…more
importantly I can’t run the risk of becoming tempted to interfere in her life
again.I guess maybe this is part of my
growing up, but it is time to let her go…regardless of how much I do and always
will love her.

I can’t lie though, I miss my friend and the mistakes I have
caused and never been able to truly apologize hurt me so.Forgiveness for them, however, is not mine to
solicit or even deserve.Tonight I
finally realize that the respect she deserves is what she had asked for when
this happened.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I’m not going to lie; I may or may not have had a bit too
much to drink when the conversation got under way.She had met up with us later in the night and
the few Miller Lites she had left her in a good position to drop me and the
boys off on our way back from the Blackbird.We pulled up in front of Dan’s house, where I would be spending the
night, and talked for a bit.She had
mentioned to me in the bar that she thought Dave was quite a good looking guy,
which I promptly followed up with a text to him in the bathroom saying
something along the lines of, “dude, Erin thinks you’re hot.You should go for it.”She was outside smoking when I came back
out.

“I wouldn’t go after her if you paid me; you’ve had a thing
for her for nearly ten years.”

He definitely had a good point; there had been some small
place inside of me that longed for her that entire time.In hindsight I don’t really know why I told
him to go for it, maybe I just wanted the possibility of her to be off the
table once and for all.After all, the
boys and I have a strict agreement to never pursue one of our ex-girlfriends,
which would effectively end it.Granted,
I thought I had already taken care of that when I told her I had feelings for
her in college.

Apparently not.

So there we are, sitting in front of Dan’s apartment in the
Jeep taking about the events of the evening.I don’t quite know how the topic came up, but after a minute or two we
were talking about what she had told me at the bar.I told her how I told him what she said and
that he responded that he wouldn’t try to go after her.I could tell by the look on her face that his
response was a bit of a shot to her pride, for some reason I felt the need to
rectify it.I told her that I wished I
could tell her why he wasn’t interested (full well knowing that she would make
me), it took a second but it came out.Once it was out there I couldn’t get it back no matter how badly I
wanted to.

“Dude, he doesn’t want to go after you because he knows that
I’ve been in love with you for years.”

“……….”

“Oh fuck, what did I just do,” I said as I felt some tears
starting to well up in my eyes.I didn’t
know what to say, she just sat there looking out the window for a minute before
she turned to me.“Patrick, I love you
too and I always have, I have just loved you as my brother all these
years.”It was the first time she had
called me by my name in nearly 8 years; I had never heard such sincerity in her
voice in our time as friends.I don’t
know if it was the stouts or the fact that I had been holding this feeling in
for so fucking long, but the tears were flowing as soon as she finished
speaking.She said that she had no idea
I had been keeping it in all these years, I guess she did what I asked her the
last time I said it when I told her to forget I ever said anything.

At this point I have a million thoughts racing through my
head, none more pressing than the fact that I may have just pushed the eject
button on one of my most valued friendships.Needless to say, at this point I was really feeling it.She took off her seat belt, leaned over and
put her head on my shoulder.I had
wanted this for so many years and I can’t deny the fact that it hurt(s) so
badly knowing that this exact moment was the closest I would ever come.

She put her arms around me and kissed my
cheek and told me that she loved me and she knew how badly I was hurting.“I’ve seen the pain in your eyes that I’m
guessing you think you have pretty well hidden and I don’t want to be responsible
for more.”What could I say?There was nothing…we just sat there,
leaning over her stick shift and holding on to each other.

She kissed me once more before I realized it was almost
four, “I should probably get going,” I said.I got out of the car and stood there watching her drive away and
wondering what the hell I had just done.Once inside I just sat there on the couch in the dark and after a minute
texted her to say that I was sorry for putting her in the spot that I did.A minute later she was asking me what spot
and telling me that it was ok; she was the queen of not letting things get
awkward.I didn’t sleep very well that
night.

Monday, April 23, 2012

We were just sitting around in Colin’s living room watching Top Gear and having a few beers.His brother, Kyle, was in town visiting for a
few days before heading back to New York.I hadn’t seen him since we were kids and he didn’t look all that much
different than how I remembered him.Colin had told me that he was finishing up med school out there and then
moving back in the middle of the summer.I went outside to go smoke a cigarette and he followed me, I figured it
would be an interesting conversation, but his phone rang before anything could
be said.

I really do despise those “let me stand here and listen to
your phone call” moments, but this one was slightly more interesting than
most.He started catching up with
someone I figured he hadn’t talked to in a while.Before long he was telling this guy about how
his fiancée all the sudden decided to jump ship after five years; she basically
kicked him out of the apartment and decided she wanted her own thing.I guess that seems to be the popular reason
behind moving back from Brooklyn these days.

I didn’t really feel like probing what I’m sure was a sore
topic, but he started talking about it when we got back inside.For the first couple minutes he is talking
about the confusion, anger vs. sadness and the like, but after a minute he says
something that really hits home:

“I’m pretty much sure that I am not interested in getting
married anymore, really not interested in dating again either.”

Now I get that it just happened to him and that he is pretty
bitter, but I sure do sympathize with him.I have long gotten over the anger and real sadness, I do get the
occasional twinge every now and then, but after seven or so months I really
don’t pay it much mind.What I do pay
mind to is the ridiculously strong desire I have now: no relationships.

I suppose I don’t mean “no relationships” as in no contact
with the opposite sex, but more than I don’t want a commitment, especially if
it involves my heart.They say that the
kid who touches the hot oven learns right away not to do it again.I, on the other hand, touched it twice and am
not interested in getting burned again…especially since they have gotten worse
each time.I’m not interested in laying
blame on anyone anymore, myself or the other parties, because I know it’s no
one way street, regardless of how much some people want it to be.

I am enjoying what is going on in life so much right now,
why on earth would I ever want to jeopardize this again?I don’t want to be in the position to be
either the offender or the offended and I don’t want to have to curse myself or
blame someone else for my pain.Right
now, there really isn’t any pain nor stress and I do like it this way.The fact of the matter is that I have never
seen things so clearly, especially now that I don’t have “love” and all of its
fucking stresses to deal with.

Now some day there may be some sweet girl who comes along
and convinces me to rethink this standpoint; unfortunately the memories of
hurting, being hurt and starting over are too much to forget.Sure, I may be able to disassociate most of
the emotions from those events, but I definitely will not forget them and I
sure as hell am not looking to make new ones.In the end it seems like all the good memories get washed away by the
bad ones anyway; I’m done taking that risk.No more touching the stove for this kid.